rock

Dinosaur Pile-Up

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Leeds trio welding Nineties grunge riffs to outsized pop hooks — power-trio volume with choruses built for rooms much larger than the ones they started in.

Dinosaur Pile-Up came together in Leeds in late 2007 after singer and guitarist Matt Bigland's previous band, Mother Vulpine, dissolved; several of the earliest songs had already been written during that band's final months. Bigland took the group's name from a scene in the 2005 King Kong remake, where a stampede of dinosaurs collapses into a pile.

He recruited Tom Dornford-May on bass and Steve Wilson on drums, and the trio released the My Rock 'n' Roll EP in 2008, followed the next year by the Traynor 7-inch and The Most Powerful EP in the Universe. They toured Europe as support for Pixies before that early rhythm section departed.

When Dornford-May and Wilson left in 2010, Bigland recorded the debut album, Growing Pains, alone in a home studio in Bridlington, playing every part himself before bassist Harry Johns and drummer Mike Sheils joined to take the songs on the road. Growing Pains was released that October.

The sound draws openly on American alternative rock of the 1990s, with thick, detuned guitar riffs and a rhythm section mixed loud, but the songs are built around plain, repeatable choruses rather than sprawl. Extensive UK and Mexico touring followed Growing Pains, alongside support slots for Feeder, Cage the Elephant, Turbowolf and Twin Atlantic.

Albums including Growing Pains, Nature Nurture, Eleven Eleven and Celebrity Mansions trace a gradual move toward bigger, more direct writing. The band now stands as the trio of Bigland, drummer Mike Sheils and bassist Jim Cratchley, built around the same push between distortion and hook.

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